Operation Mailgirl - Feedback

Author: Nynah
Story (+link): Operation Mailgirl: Chapter 1
Category: Exhibitionism & Voyeurism

Hello all! I'm Nynah and am just submitting a story I've written to this forum for feedback. I've already had some comments on the story itself as well as some private feedback, so I figured I'd open a thread here to engage in discussion about it if people were interested. This is my first attempt at an erotic story, so I appreciate any and all comments and criticism. I've had a couple of people ask when I'll be adding another chapter. I'm currently working on the next installment and I hope to have it up soon; I'd say it's about 70% complete at the moment. I'm trying to get it to where I'm completely happy with it, but as I'm something of a perfectionist writer, it's proving a bit more difficult than I thought. But I will get it posted as soon as I can.

Thank you for reading!

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LeandraNyx said:

Okay, quick question, what is the "Mailgirl Universe" exactly?

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A quick Bing search "mail girl universe" pulls up an ASN Story Board thread - Chapter 47. A random scan of comments suggests it's a long sequence of stories with a common exhibitionist theme, possibly multiple writers (but I didn't delve very deep).

No link provided, as ASN is competition to Lit as a publishing platform...

LeandraNyx said:

Okay, quick question, what is the "Mailgirl Universe" exactly?

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The concept of Mailgirls is having young, naked women courier inter-office correspondence, often in a corporate setting. The key elements are CMNF, humiliation and embarrassment, along with a decent amount of exhibitionism.

There isn't a shared universe, per se, just a number of different authors providing their unique take on the Mailgirl concept. My story takes particular inspiration from the ones written by Seahawk76 and lizstanton8181 and their works are great reads if you want to get a feel for the Mailgirl idea. Each setting, while very similar, is a separate entity conceived by their respective authors.

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Ok! It took me nearly a week to read this, in little dribs and drabs, so apologies if my impressions are a little off.

First of all, from a technical standpoint, you are a fantastic writer. It’s clear that you’ve got a lot of talent for putting words on a page. This is a very sound story. You’ve got excellent vocabulary, and your structure is solid.

I’ve talked before, in previous feedback on this forum, about how grammar, spelling, and nuts-and-bolts writing is like a delivery car. It can ruin pizza with exhaust fumes, or it can break down and the pizza is cold by the time it gets there. Your writing is like having a Porsche for a delivery car.

That being said, the delivery car can’t make the pizza taste good. It can only not get in the way.

As others have said in the comments for the story, it’s cliche to have the big breasted, tall, thin blonde as your main character. Sure, it’s a popular conglomeration of attributes for a reason, but it’s low hanging fruit.

Since this is your first story, I feel like you probably pressured yourself to A) make her as universally desirable as possible, and B) jam her description into the story as quickly as possible because you don’t know how readers will react to something being unspecific. You can leave these things vague, and your story will still do fine. Time and experience will give you the confidence to be more relaxed about the delivery of this information.

Flashbacks are bad. Again, I feel like you pressured yourself into trying to hook the reader with “omg I’m about to be naked inside this building” but didn’t trust that we could wait to find out why until later. There could have been incredible tension in your first chapter if we found out she was a CIA operative at the very end, after her being physically violated as well as witnessing what appears to be human sex trafficking.

Instead of having this great question looming like “My god, why is she subjecting herself to this?”, you wrote a series of flashbacks that overexplained exactly who what where when why and how right at the beginning of the story.

Time and experience will give you the confidence to be more relaxed about the delivery of this information. Seeding it over time, and peeling back the layers of your character little by little.

Lastly, I want to talk about the specific kink. You intended to write a story about exhibitionism, but it’s important to recognize that what you’re really doing is dehumanization. These mailgirls are having their identity stripped away. They’re being reduced to pretty objects. I myself have written stories about dehumanization, and I feel like you’re approaching the kink too lightly given the level of detail. In the hands of a lesser writer, I wouldn’t complain about this, but you seem to have the depth and awareness to really dive into the deep end of the pool and explore it.

As I said at the beginning, you are a damn fine writer, but it takes a lot more than a few pretty words strung together to make the leap between writer and author. If you keep hammering away at this, you’ll be pretty formidable pretty soon.

Solid writing, and definitely hot. I'm not particularly an enthusiast of chaptered stories on Lit or even of exhibitionism per se, but I would read further chapters of this.

Someone in comments mentioned that the story might be better for the noncon category, and I tend to agree. (I'm not saying that judgmentally, by the way. Just factually, the story already contains noncon -- even if the sexual content is light to this point -- and looks to be on track for more. So it's something worth thinking about.)

I agree with some of AwkwardMD's comments, especially that you could easily take your time introducing the undercover law enforcement angle and preserve more of an air of mystery around it. (Also, you mentioned keeping it grounded in reality, so I'll bring it up: the CIA doesn't conduct domestic undercover operations, or shouldn't be doing so. The kind of operation Claire is part of would be more DHS' beat as part of its work on transnational crime.)

Lastly: while it's interesting to discover that there's an obscure corner of erotica I wasn't familiar with, the genealogy of the "Mailgirl universe" and/or concept may possibly be more of a barrier to new readers than an attraction. I know the first thing I wondered on seeing your preface was whether there was some obscure lore or set of conventions I was going to be expected to know, on account of which I very nearly didn't read the story. Happily that turns out not to have been the case, but even so I'd maybe save shouting out authors and inspirations for a post-script at least; the story as it is doesn't require too much explanation or throat-clearing.

AwkwardMD said:

Ok! It took me nearly a week to read this, in little dribs and drabs, so apologies if my impressions are a little off.

First of all, from a technical standpoint, you are a fantastic writer. It’s clear that you’ve got a lot of talent for putting words on a page. This is a very sound story. You’ve got excellent vocabulary, and your structure is solid.

I’ve talked before, in previous feedback on this forum, about how grammar, spelling, and nuts-and-bolts writing is like a delivery car. It can ruin pizza with exhaust fumes, or it can break down and the pizza is cold by the time it gets there. Your writing is like having a Porsche for a delivery car.

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I've never had my writing described like that before. It's both humbling and extremely flattering, so thank you very much!

AwkwardMD said:

That being said, the delivery car can’t make the pizza taste good. It can only not get in the way.

As others have said in the comments for the story, it’s cliche to have the big breasted, tall, thin blonde as your main character. Sure, it’s a popular conglomeration of attributes for a reason, but it’s low hanging fruit.

Since this is your first story, I feel like you probably pressured yourself to A) make her as universally desirable as possible, and B) jam her description into the story as quickly as possible because you don’t know how readers will react to something being unspecific. You can leave these things vague, and your story will still do fine. Time and experience will give you the confidence to be more relaxed about the delivery of this information.

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My description of the main character is what I'm actually into, so that's why she's described the way she is. I completely concur that it's cliche and low-hanging fruit, but I wasn't making a conscious decision to make her as appealing as possible to the lowest common denominator. I agree her description (and by proxy, myself) are a bit boring in that sense, so I will certainly take that into consideration for future stories.

AwkwardMD said:

Flashbacks are bad. Again, I feel like you pressured yourself into trying to hook the reader with “omg I’m about to be naked inside this building” but didn’t trust that we could wait to find out why until later. There could have been incredible tension in your first chapter if we found out she was a CIA operative at the very end, after her being physically violated as well as witnessing what appears to be human sex trafficking.

Instead of having this great question looming like “My god, why is she subjecting herself to this?”, you wrote a series of flashbacks that overexplained exactly who what where when why and how right at the beginning of the story.

Time and experience will give you the confidence to be more relaxed about the delivery of this information. Seeding it over time, and peeling back the layers of your character little by little.

Click to expand...

Reading it over again, I totally agree with you that the tension could have been played through much better had I masked the fact she was a federal agent until the close of the chapter. I think I was just so dead-set on trying to set up the a perfect setting for the story that I ended up being overly detailed. Will try to plan better exposition for future installments.

AwkwardMD said:

Lastly, I want to talk about the specific kink. You intended to write a story about exhibitionism, but it’s important to recognize that what you’re really doing is dehumanization. These mailgirls are having their identity stripped away. They’re being reduced to pretty objects. I myself have written stories about dehumanization, and I feel like you’re approaching the kink too lightly given the level of detail. In the hands of a lesser writer, I wouldn’t complain about this, but you seem to have the depth and awareness to really dive into the deep end of the pool and explore it.

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The stories I took my inspiration from were heavily into exhibitionism and subservience, so I wanted to root my tale in that before taking it in a harder, more explicit direction. I intend for the next chapter to have that direction, so I hope it comes across as such when I finally get around to submitting it.

AwkwardMD said:

As I said at the beginning, you are a damn fine writer, but it takes a lot more than a few pretty words strung together to make the leap between writer and author. If you keep hammering away at this, you’ll be pretty formidable pretty soon.

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Thank you again for taking the time to both read my story and provide helpful and constructive criticism. I will definitely take your words to heart and work on improving in the areas you highlighted.

CyranoJ said:

Solid writing, and definitely hot. I'm not particularly an enthusiast of chaptered stories on Lit or even of exhibitionism per se, but I would read further chapters of this.

Someone in comments mentioned that the story might be better for the noncon category, and I tend to agree. (I'm not saying that judgmentally, by the way. Just factually, the story already contains noncon -- even if the sexual content is light to this point -- and looks to be on track for more. So it's something worth thinking about.)

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You have a very valid point. As I'm writing the next chapter, it's definitely taking a turn into NonConsent, so once I'm finished, I'll have to read it over and evaluate which category to submit it under.

CyranoJ said:

I agree with some of AwkwardMD's comments, especially that you could easily take your time introducing the undercover law enforcement angle and preserve more of an air of mystery around it. (Also, you mentioned keeping it grounded in reality, so I'll bring it up: the CIA doesn't conduct domestic undercover operations, or shouldn't be doing so. The kind of operation Claire is part of would be more DHS' beat as part of its work on transnational crime.)

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As I mentioned to AwkwardMD, I'm kind of kicking myself for not keeping it more mysterious until the end, but I can't really do much about it at this point except work on doing a better job framing anything I write going forward. And when I was doing preliminary research for which federal agency to have Claire work for, I was wavering back and forth between the DHS, the FBI and the CIA. I decided on the CIA as I plan on moving the story overseas into foreign jurisdictions; she's merely training at Mizutomo Tower and not carrying out a sanctioned domestic undercover operation. I hope that makes sense. I will probably have characters from all the different agencies make an appearance at some point.

CyranoJ said:

Lastly: while it's interesting to discover that there's an obscure corner of erotica I wasn't familiar with, the genealogy of the "Mailgirl universe" and/or concept may possibly be more of a barrier to new readers than an attraction. I know the first thing I wondered on seeing your preface was whether there was some obscure lore or set of conventions I was going to be expected to know, on account of which I very nearly didn't read the story. Happily that turns out not to have been the case, but even so I'd maybe save shouting out authors and inspirations for a post-script at least; the story as it is doesn't require too much explanation or throat-clearing.

Click to expand...

I'm a huge fan of the Mailgirls stories written by the authors I mentioned, so I do admit that my story is very much a directed ode to their works. I debated explaining the concept of Mailgirls during the first few sections of the chapter, but I think it managed to work out, as readers such as yourself seem to have gleaned the basic concept without having previously read the prior stories.

Thank you for reading and giving me constructive feedback and criticism; it is very much welcome and appreciated.

Nynah said:

I was wavering back and forth between the DHS, the FBI and the CIA. I decided on the CIA as I plan on moving the story overseas into foreign jurisdictions

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Right. And I get that the CIA is the more seemingly-obvious choice for working overseas; it's not widely known that DHS does so too. There might actually be an opportunity there, as CIA domestic work can only be done (real-world styles) with domestic law enforcement attached. (Actually a specific, and accurate, plot point in the movie Sicario.) So you could introduce additional elements and characters that way if you were so inclined.

I debated explaining the concept of Mailgirls during the first few sections of the chapter, but I think it managed to work out, as readers such as yourself seem to have gleaned the basic concept without having previously read the prior stories.

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All's well that ends well, true. I guess what I'm getting at, though, is that I'm a pretty lore-friendly nerd -- for context, I have to date published about 200,000 words' worth of a bikini-girl Star Trek parody -- and if I reacted that way, there might be more readers who didn't make it over the hump.

That said, if the homage element is important to you, by all means do what you feel. At any rate I'll be looking forward to further chapters. Good luck!

Experiment. Write some shorter pieces where you give yourself a challenge like "I'm not going to explain what the characters look like at all", or "I wonder how many scenes I can write in a row with no dialogue/all dialogue and no narration"

Challenge yourself. You have real, real talent, but it's up to you to push yourself to see how good you can be.

It's been up for a bit, but here's the next installment. I was in the process of writing it as this thread was originally going on, so I tried to double back and edit things based on feedback. I think I had somewhat mixed success. As always, any and all feedback is appreciated!

I love how you brought this girls personality out and let us crawl inside her head.

This is written very well. No matter what happens you seem to take us there. That makes every thing more exciting.

The second chapter is hot as hell. Nothing else to say about it, really. Looking forward to more.